How to Make a Profitable Small Business (From Your Passion)

It’s a popular rallying cry for career
counselors and self-help gurus. But how do you actually do it? If you’re
fortunate enough to have a passion for telling other people to follow their
passion, the business model is pretty clear. But what if you have a passion for
something less easy to monetize, like:

art

writing

woodwork

music

In that case, it might be a lot harder for
you to create a business out of your passion. But it’s not impossible. People
do it all the time. You just have to do some work to figure out how to identify
a market you can serve profitably.

What role does passion play in making a profitable small business? (source graphic)

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to do
that. We’ll start by looking at what passion even means in a business context,
why it’s important, and how you can identify it if you’re not sure. Then we’ll
go through some of the nuts and bolts of converting that passion into a viable
business model.

1. What Is Passion?

You hear the word "passion" a
lot, but what does it really mean in a business context?

What if you’re passionate about something
that’s not easy to make profitable? Or what if, on the other hand, you're in an
industry that's difficult to get passionate about, like manufacturing some
small component of an industrial process?

Defining Passion

Some of the confusion around the concept of
passion comes from its multiple definitions. In my dictionary, the first
definition of “passion” is:

Strong and barely controllable emotion

That’s not what we’re talking about here.
The dictionary then goes on to talk about romance, and that’s definitely not what we’re talking about
here.

The type of passion we’re talking about in
business is in the next definition:

Passion for Different Areas of the Business

Keep in mind that your business or product
doesn’t necessarily have to be something you love in and of itself—although
that helps. It could simply be about seeing an opportunity to do something and
being enthusiastic and determined to do it well.

"Our team saw a great
opportunity for revamping customer service in banking. While I wasn’t
passionate about banking, customer service is something that interests
me."

So your passion can be for an element of
the business or a particular way of doing business, not necessarily the product itself.

2. Why Is Passion Important?

So why does the term “passion” crop up so
much in business advice? Isn’t it enough just to find a good business idea?

Well, maybe. You could create a business in
an area you don’t really care about, and make it a success by sheer hard work
and force of will. But having a passion for what you do will make it a lot
easier. Here’s why:

Running a Small Business Is Hard Work

If you want an easy life, don’t start a
small business.

It’s possible, of course, that you’ll be a
huge success, sell your business for a few billion, and be able to retire to
Monte Carlo. But that doesn't happen too often.

What’s much more likely is that, especially
in the early days, you’ll be short
of money, investing your every waking hour in the business, worrying about
it during your sleeping hours too, and having a work-life
balance that’s constantly weighted towards the work side of the scale.

Among other things, you’ll probably need
to:

raise money

design products

research the market

create a brand

create a website

design the website

troubleshoot the website

redesign the website

advertise

do the boring accounting stuff

handle reams of red tape

and much more

Try doing all of that without feeling
passionate about what you’re doing, and see how far you get. Most successful entrepreneurs
have gone through hard times, times when nothing seemed to be working and
success seemed always out of reach. Passion can help you keep going when others
would quit.

The Need to Inspire Others

Being successful in business is not just
about motivating yourself: you’ll also need to motivate and inspire others.

When your business grows and you hire
your first employees, you'll need to inspire them with your passion and
vision for the business. And when you deal with everyone from customers to
suppliers, your passion for what you do needs to come across.

If you’re in doubt about how important this
is, take a look at a speech by a successful entrepreneur, like the Apple
presentations by Steve Jobs, or pretty much any TED talk.

What you’ll notice immediately is that
these people are passionate about what they do. They believe in it 100%. They
think it’s incredibly important, and they want to convince you to believe that
too.

It’s pretty hard to fake that kind of
passion. If you want to be successful in a competitive marketplace, you’ll need
to be an evangelist for your business. You can’t expect others to believe in
the importance of your idea if you don’t strongly believe in it yourself.

In short, passion can not only keep you
going through the hard times, but it can also convince others to join you and help
you on the journey.

3. How to Find Your Passion

If you already have a passion and know
exactly what type of business you want to start, you can skip straight to
Section 4. But if you’re not sure, then read on.

After all, for many of us, finding our
passion can be the hard part. Maybe you want to start a new venture, but you
don’t feel a particular passion for anything. Some of us have spent so long
subverting our desires that it can be hard to unearth them again. And some of
us may feel that our true passion is “impractical” and have given up on it.

So here are some exercises to help you
identify what it is that you feel enthusiastic about. This can also help you if
you're already in business but lacking passion—maybe you can refocus yourself
or even redirect the business towards something you do really care about.

Questions to Ask Yourself

If simply asking yourself what you’re passionate
about doesn’t produce a clear answer, try some of these other questions to help
you brainstorm.

What did you enjoy doing as a kid?

What did you secretly dream of doing when
you grew up?

What aspects of your current job or life
give you the most pleasure?

What would you do if you didn’t have to be
so responsible all the time?

What advice would you give your 18-year-old
self? What path would you take if you were that age again?

When you’re 80 years old and looking back
on your life, what would you like to be able to say about it?

Congratulations! You’ve just won the
lottery, and you never have to worry about money again. What would you do with
your life in this scenario?

What makes you angry?

What would you change if you had the power
to do anything you wanted?

Is there anything that frustrates you as a
customer of other businesses? Is there anything you think you could do better,
or a problem you could solve?

What are some activities that you don’t do
often but always enjoy?

List five crazy things you’d like to try
doing one day.

What do you think you’d have done with your
life if you’d had the perfect childhood, the perfect start in life?

What’s your biggest regret?

What do you tend to daydream, dream, or
fantasize about?

What would you like to try if it didn’t
sound so crazy?

What would you do if you didn’t have to do
it perfectly?

Who do you feel jealous of and why?

Take a journal or notebook and write
answers to all these questions. You may have lots of different answers, but try
to spot some overlap or some general themes that can point you in the right
direction. It’s about discovering what you like doing or secretly dream of
doing.

Multiple Passions or No Passions?

It’s worth noting that not everyone has a
single over-riding passion. You may be passionate about several things, and if
that’s the case, you don’t necessarily have to reduce them down to just one. In fact, it’s
quite possible for you to combine different passions in the business you
create.

If, on the other hand, you’re still not
coming up with any passions at all, it’s possible that you’re being too
restrictive. Remember, you don’t have to feel uncontrollable emotions here;
it’s more about feelings of enthusiasm or strong interest.

4. Turning Your Passion Into a Profitable Business

So you understand what passion is and why
it’s important, and you’ve identified your passion in life. Now how do you turn
it into a business?

Refine Your Idea

Maybe you have a passion for colorful
textiles, for example. That’s great, but it’s not a business. But setting up a
website to allow customers around the world to buy hand-woven rugs directly
from artisans in North Africa would be a solid business idea.

What you’re looking for here is something
specific, perhaps a problem you can solve, or something you can do better than
the companies currently in the market. For more on refining your idea, see the
following tutorials:

Create a Brand, Raise Funds, and Prepare for Launch

In my tutorial on How
to Start a Business, I take you through more of the nuts and bolts of
moving from an idea through to a functioning company.

You’ll learn about creating a brand,
choosing a legal structure, raising funds, building and testing your first
product, setting up your financial accounts, getting the word out, and more.
Read the full guide here:

5. Is Passion Enough?

So you’ve seen in this tutorial that
passion is important in starting a small business. But is it enough?

Other Skills You’ll Need

In short, passion goes a long way, but
you'll need other skills too—or you'll need to hire people or outsource the
work to someone else who has those skills. For example:

You’ll need to understand accounting and
bookkeeping, or hire someone who does.

You’ll need discipline and some sort of
productivity system to keep you organized and on track.

You’ll need to be able to plan effectively,
and to hold yourself accountable to those plans.

You’ll need an understanding of the market,
a flair for sales and marketing, good presentation skills, and much more.

What If You Don’t Have All Those Skills?

Of course, everyone has strengths and
weaknesses. It’s fine if some of those things I’ve listed just aren’t your
strong points. The important thing is to know what you’re good at and what
you’re not, and to seek help in the areas where you’re weaker.

For example, if numbers give you a
headache, you’ll probably want to consider hiring
an accountant. Or if technical stuff frustrates you, maybe you need to find
someone to design your website.

Know Thyself

In summary, passion is a huge help when
starting a business, but passion alone is not enough to make you successful.
You’ll need other skills, and it’s crucial to know what you can do and what you
can’t, so that you can hire either freelancers or permanent employees to fill
in the skill gaps.

For more help on analyzing yourself and
finding out what you need to do to run a business successfully, see these two
tutorials:

Conclusion

We started out with a simple saying:
“Follow your passion.”

As you’ve seen in this tutorial, starting a profitable small business is far from simple. However, if you take things step by step and are
thorough in your planning, you can certainly be successful. And starting that
business based on a true passion will make it easier for you to feel
enthusiastic and motivated about what you do, and to inspire others to follow you
and support you.

You’re now in a much better position to be
able to identify your passion and take the steps necessary to convert it into a
solid business idea and finally into a successful business. You've seen what passion is, why it's important, and how you can find your own passion. And you've got some guidance on the nuts and bolts of turning your passion into a profitable business venture.